Monday, July 07, 2014

Dave Walker, Turning Around The Misery Index

Dave Walker, who is running
for Lieutenant Governor on the Republican Party ticket, is recognized by most
credible political observers as perhaps the most over qualified candidate for
Lieutenant Governor in state history.

He is a member of
the Accounting Hall of Fame and for ten years was the Comptroller General of
the United States. When Mr. Walker talks about budgets, financing and pension viability,
people listen.

Mr. Walker is also
attuned to fine nuances in political campaigning. He is not running for
governor, he says, because he had moved to Connecticut only four years ago and
wishes to respect the political pecking order. Very few people in the state
think that, were he governor, Mr. Walker would know less about the finance side
of government than his budget chief.

Mr. Walker can say
with a straight face, “I knew Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan was a friend of
mine, and you Mr. (plug in the name of any false pretender to the Reagan
legacy) are no Ronald Reagan.” A recent popularity poll places Mr. Reagan far
in the lead of beloved presidents. President Barack Obama, who has dropped
considerably in the public esteem, is now rated as the worst U.S. President in
the post-World War II period.

Direction in
politics is not merely part of the game; it is the whole game. Mr. Walker is
convinced that Connecticut has been moving in the wrong direction for many
years, and the election of Dannel Malloy as governor has not helped.

The notion, peddled
by Malloyalists, that Connecticut’s frequent budget sink-holes have been caused
by the last two Republican governors is pure campaign fiction. The flood gates
of spending were opened after former Governor Lowell Weicker had instituted his
income tax, and it is no secret that entrepreneurial activity decreases the
more businesses are convinced that government cannot restrain itself from
plundering entrepreneurial capital. Both Governors Jodi Rell and before her
John Rowland were, it is true, imperfect firewalls holding back a spring tide of
spending. But the spending itself was generated by a Democrat dominated General
Assembly animated by series of laughably implausible assumptions, perhaps the
most pernicious of which is that state government may improve the economy by
withdrawing money from it and recirculating tax dollars to preferred companies,
the essence of Mr. Malloy’s crony capitalist solution to debt caused by
overspending. The real solution to overspending is to cut spending, just as the
real solution to alcoholism is to stop drinking, always a measure of last
resort to those who find it difficult to wean themselves from their addictions.

Red flags in
Connecticut, Mr. Walker is convinced, have been flapping under our noses for a
long while, and no one has taken heed of them. Connecticut’s very much in
arrears pension obligations is one of the more obvious red flags.

Any effort to turn
around Connecticut’s ship of state would be a very painful exercise, at least
in the short run, which is probably why politicians in the state whose futures
in office depend upon the placidity of voters have in the past been so
reluctant to make the hard case for fiscal health and prosperity.

What is needed, Mr.
Walker told me in a recent interview, is someone in state government who can work
the spending side of the ledger, place important issues before the people and
make the case that a little pain now would assure a brighter future later for
everyone in the state – including those groups of people that Democratic Party
propaganda has targeted as the principal beneficiaries of progressive programs.
Self-reliance is a permanent cure; permanent dependence on government is a
permanent crutch. Spending must be cut before taxes; commitments made by
governors and other running for public office must be reasonable, workable and
just; people in Connecticut are ready for politicians who will tell them what
the people themselves already KNOW to be true.

In a just society,
everyone should benefit from the ministrations of government, and government
power should be used in an inclusive way to integrate rather than segregate competing
interest groups into the larger society.

If Connecticut, now
taking on water, sinks beneath the waves, no one will be safe from destruction,
most especially those people who need a life-line to pull them aboard ship.